Anne Perry - The Face of a Stranger

"I trust you will speak only when asked?" Monk said to her coldly. "This is a police operation, and a very delicate one." That she of all people should be the one whose assistance he needed at this point was galling in the extreme, and yet it was undeniable. She was in many ways everything he loathed in a woman, the antithesis of the gentleness that still lingered with such sweetness in his memory; and yet she had rare courage, and a force of character which would equal Fabia Grey's any day.

"Certainly, Mr. Monk," she replied with her chin high and her eyes unflinching, and he knew in that instant that she had expected precisely this reception, and come to the carriage late intentionally to circumvent the possibility of being ordered home. Although of course it was highly debatable as to whether she would have gone. And Evan would never countenance leaving her on the station platform at Shelburne. And Monk did care what Evan felt.

He sat and stared across at Hester, wishing he could think of something else crushing to say.

She smiled at him, clear-eyed and agreeable. It was not so much friendliness as triumph.

They continued the rest of the journey with civility, and gradually each became consumed in private thoughts, and a dread of the task ahead.

When they arrived at Shelburne they alighted onto the platform. The weather was heavy and dark with the presage of winter. It had stopped raining, but a cold wind stirred in gusts and chilled the skin even through heavy coats.

They were obliged to wait some fifteen minutes before a trap arrived, which they hired to take them to the hall. This journey, too, they made huddled together and without speaking. They were all oppressed by what was to come, and the trivialities of conversation would have been grotesque.

They were admitted reluctantly by the footman, but no persuasion would cause him to show them into the withdrawing room. Instead they were left together in the morning room, neither cheered nor warmed by the fire smoldering in the grate, and required to wait until Her Ladyship should decide whether she would receive them or not.

After twenty-five minutes the footman returned and conducted them to the boudoir, where Fabia was seated on her favorite settee, looking pale and somewhat strained, but perfectly composed.

"Good morning, Mr. Monk. Constable." She nodded at Evan. Her eyebrows rose and her eyes became icier. “Good morning, Miss Latterly. I assume you can explain your presence here in such curious company?''

Hester took the bull by the horns before Monk had time to form a reply.

"Yes, Lady Fabia. I have come to inform you of the truth about my family's tragedy-and yours."

"You have my condolences, Miss Latterly." Fabia looked at her with pity and distaste. "But I have no desire to know the details of your loss, nor do I wish to discuss my bereavement with you. It is a private matter. I imagine your intention is good, but it is entirely misplaced. Good day to you. The footman will see you to the door."

Monk felt the first flicker of anger stir, in spite of the consuming disillusion he knew this woman was shortly going to feel. Her willful blindness was monumental, her ability to disregard other people total.

Hester's face set hard with resolve, as granite hard as Fabia's own.

“It is the same tragedy, Lady Fabia. And I do not discuss it out of good intentions, but because it is a truth we are all obliged to face. It gives me no pleasure at all, but neither do I plan to run away from it-"

Fabia's chin came up and the thin muscles tightened in her neck, suddenly looking scraggy, as if age had descended on her in the brief moments since they entered the room.

"I have never run from a truth in my life, Miss Latterly, and I do not care for your impertinence in suggesting I might. You forget yourself."

"I would prefer to forget everything and go home." A ghost of a smile crossed Hester's face and vanished. "But I cannot. I think it would be better if Lord Shelburne and Mr. Menard Grey were to be present, rather than repeat the story for them later. There may be questions they wish to ask-Major Grey was their brother and they have some rights in knowing how and why he died."

Fabia sat motionless, her face rigid, her hands poised halfway towards the bell pull. She had not invited any of them to be seated, in fact she was on the point of asking again that they leave. Now, with the mention of Joscelin's murderer, everything was changed. There was not the slightest sound in the room except the ticking of the ormolu clock on the mantelpiece.

"You know who killed Joscelin?" She looked at Monk, ignoring Hester.

"Yes ma'am, we do." He found his mouth dry and the pulse beating violently in his head. Was it fear, or pity- or both?

Fabia stared at him, demanding he explain everything for her, then slowly the challenge died. She saw something in his face which she could not overcome, a knowledge and a finality which touched her with the first breath of a chill, nameless fear. She pulled the bell, and when the maid came, told her to send both Menard and Lovel to her immediately. No mention was made of Rosamond.

She was not a Grey by blood, and apparently Fabia did not consider she had any place in this revelation.

They waited in silence, each in their separate worlds of misery and apprehension. Lovel came first, looking irritably from Fabia to Monk, and with surprise at Hester. He had obviously been interrupted while doing something he considered of far greater urgency.

"What is it?" he said, frowning at his mother. "Has something further been discovered?"

"Mr. Monk says he knows at last who killed Joscelin," she answered with masklike calm.

"Who?"

"He has not told me. He is waiting for Menard."

Lovel turned to Hester, his face puckered with confusion. "Miss Latterly?"

"The truth involves the death of my father also, Lord Shelburne," she explained gravely. "There are parts of it which I can tell you, so you understand it all."

The first shadow of anxiety touched him, but before he could press her further Menard came in, glanced from one to another of them, and paled.

"Monk finally knows who killed Joscelin," Lovel explained. "Now for heaven's sake, get on with it. I presume you have arrested him?"

"It is in hand, sir." Monk found himself more polite to them all than previously. It was a form of distancing himself, almost a sort of verbal defense.

"Then what is it you want of us?" Lovel demanded.

It was like plunging into a deep well of ice.

"Major Grey made his living out of his experience in the Crimean War-" Monk began. Why was he so mealy-mouthed? He was dressing it in sickening euphemisms.

"My son did not 'make his living' as you put it!" Fabia snapped. "He was a gentleman-there was no necessity. He had an allowance from the family estates."

"Which didn't begin to cover the expenses of the way he liked to live," Menard said savagely. "If you'd ever looked at him closely, even once, you would have known that."

"I did know it." Lovel glared at his brother. "I assumed he was successful at cards."

"He was-sometimes. At other times he'd lose-heavily- more than he had. He'd go on playing, hoping to get it back, ignoring the debts-until I paid them, to save the family honor."

"Liar," Fabia said with withering disgust. "You were always jealous of him, even as a child. He was braver, kinder and infinitely more charming than you." For a moment a brief glow of memory superseded the present and softened all the lines of anger in her fece-then the rage returned deeper man before. "And you couldn't forgive him for it."

Dull color burned up Menard's face and he winced as if he had been struck. But he did not retaliate. There was still in his eyes, in the turn of his lips, a pity for her which concealed the bitter truth.